Stephen Colbert Bridge
The Stephen Colbert Bridge is a bridge in Budapest, Hungary, soon to be named the "Stephen Colbert híd" by patriotic Hungarians. Stephen Colbert beat out Jon Stewart, Miklós Zrínyi , and at least one well-written Perl script to receive this honor. Voting: The First Round In the opening round of voting for the Hungaria's Hot New Híd Naming Contest (Vadonatúj magyar híd elvevezési verseny), "Stephen Colbert híd" finished first with 17,231,725 votes (53%). This is quite surprising, considering that the population of Hungary is 9,981,334 (estimated July 2006). Given this glaring discrepancy, the only reasonably truthy conclusion one could reach is that Hungarians love Stephen Colbert so much, that every man, woman, and child voted for Colbert at least once, and that most returned for a second vote. Shame on you, Hungary, for abusing democracy! But we'll forgive you, since you were deprived for such a long time under the commies, and since you're part of New Europe now, and since such devotion for Our Glorious Stephen has been known to bring out the crazy in even in the occasional American fan. Voting: The Second Round Although Stephen was the clear winner of Round One, the war was far from over. The top 25 of the first round moved on to the second round, but the voting rules were changed. Suddenly, the website decided that it would require potential voters to register and log on in order to vote. Bassza meg! Joining Stephen for the Second-Round Show-Down (második leszámolás forduló) in the second round was Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, a fake news program whose popularity is greatly helped by being on in the same hour as The Colbert Report. Also Miklós Zrínyi was beating Stephen, but he was being an asshole! Another close contender was "Szent Korona". Certain "Hungarians" say that this is the name of a very important crown. Initial reports indicated that the so-called "crown" was, in fact, no more than a priceless, centuries-old, jewel encrusted very shiny hat. So what's the big deal about that, right? Well, it turns out that what the Hungarians, in their crazy moon language, call "Szent Korona," we Americans, with our better grasp of the American language, would call the "Crown of St. Stephen." So you can see where this would be kind of confusing for the Hungarians, after all. I mean, they were basically being asked to choose between the "Stephen Colbert híd" and the "Crown of Stephen Colbert híd." As they say in Sunday School, "the devil is in the details." Voting Procedures The second round of voting was open to "Hungarian Citizens Only," which meant that you had to join Hungaria in order to vote. Because the second round required you to join Hungaria and log on to their website, it necessitated the following steps: #Go here: http://www.m0hid.gov.hu/regisztracio #Type in a valid email address, and a password of your choosing. Confirm your password, then click the "Regisztráció" button. #Check your email, and open the confirmation letter. Click "linkre" inside to confim your registration, and open the voting window. #From there, chose "Stephen Colbert híd", and the "Elküld" button at the bottom. These steps resulted in many new "Hungarian" citizens of the ColbertNation, all of whom now spoke three words of Hungarian: "Regisztráció," "Elküld," and of course "híd." (I'm pretty sure "linkre" is French, and was just put in there to throw us off.) Results Round 1 Top Five Round 2 Top Five Victory On September 14th, 2006, the Hungarian Ambassador to The United States of America, András Simonyi, officially declared Stephen Colbert the winner. The bridge was to be named after him under the following conditions: *1. Stephen Colbert must be fluent in Hungarian (which he proved to the satisfaction of the Ambassador) by pronouncing híd and Zrinyi. *2. Stephen Colbert must be dead. The Ambassador gave Stephen a Hungarian passport, some Hungarian currency and a standing invitation to visit the bridge. Voting Irregularities Hanging Tabs Due to the highly confusing procedures involved in the Hungarian style ballot a large number of people have been disenfranchised. While attempting to select Mr. Colbert's name several voters, such as Mildred Agnew, 86, Boca Raton, FL, actually selected "Patrick Buchanan híd." Efforts are currently underway to determine elkulder intent. Zoltan Stewart, brother of Jon and the Hungarian Minister for Bridges and Tunnels, has announced that a "fair and accurate system will be used to make these determinations." Stuffing the Ballot Stuffing the ballot is impossible. Nobody used any manner of automatic voting software. This software was not available on the ColbertNation website, or anywhere else for that matter. It has never existed, and ballot stuffing never happened. In this totally legitimate contest proceedings, 98% of votes for "Stephen Colbert híd" were cast by Hungarian citizens. The other 2% are just patriotic Americans with balls and Tube-manipulating skills. Even Zrinyi voted for Stephen. See Also * Hungaria * Miklós Zrínyi * Keep up on construction news here